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The Early Word: The Primary Picture

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The Early Word: The Primary Picture

June 9, 2010 7:54 amJune 9, 2010 7:54 am

Voters in a dozen states from California to Maine cast ballots on Tuesday in the year’s busiest primary day so far, testing the limits of an intense anti-incumbent fervor and sending one Republican candidate to Congress, from Georgia.

California voters also approved a measure to do away with the primary system in favor of simplified open elections.

The Times’s Jeff Zeleny reports that Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas won the nod from Democrats for her third term, barely fending off a well-funded challenge from Lt. Gov. Bill Halter on her left. She’ll face Representative John Boozman, a Republican, in November.

The Times’s Carl Hulse noted that Mrs. Lincoln’s victory proved that there are limits to the power of anti-incumbent rage.

In South Carolina, Nikki Haley, a state representative, and Representative J. Gresham Barrett are headed to a June 22 runoff for the Republican gubernatorial nomination after Ms. Haley fell just shy of the majority needed to win outright. The winner will face Vincent Sheheen, a Democratic state senator, in a November race to succeed Gov. Mark Sanford, a Republican who is prohibited from seeking a third term by term limits.

Women who made their fortunes as high-tech executives won big in California. Meg Whitman, a Republican billionaire and the former chief executive of eBay, will go up against Jerry Brown, the state attorney general and former governor, in November in a contest to replace Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican barred from running again by term limits. Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard chief executive, will face Senator Barbara Boxer, who easily won the Democratic nomination.

In Nevada, Gov. Jim Gibbons lost the Republican nomination to Brian Sandoval, a former federal judge. Mr. Sandoval will face Rory Reid, the son of the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, in November. The senior Reid advanced in his own primary, and will face Sharron Angle, a former state lawmaker, in November.

Representative Bob Inglis, trying for a seventh term representing South Carolina’s Fourth Congressional District, is headed to a runoff with Trey Gowdy, a Spartanburg prosecutor. Representative Joe Wilson, who yelled “You lie!” last year during President Obama’s health care speech to Congress, won the Republican nod for the state’s Second Congressional District. He’ll face Rob Miller, a Democrat and former Marine captain, in November for the second time.

In Iowa, Roxanne Conlin, a Democrat and a lawyer from Des Moines, will compete against Senator Charles E. Grassley. And in Virginia, Robert Hurt, a state senator, will challenge Representative Tom Perriello, a vulnerable freshman Democrat, in November.

In Georgia, Tom Graves, a Republican and a former state representative, is on his way to Washington to take the place of Representative Nathan Deal, who resigned to run for governor.

For the full results and the minutiae of Tuesday’s votes, check out the play-by-play from The Caucus’s Kate Phillips.

Campaign Cash: Arizona primary voters don’t go to the polls until Aug. 24, but their choice of candidates could be affected by a Supreme Court ruling Tuesday that bars state officials from providing matching funds to candidates for state office who accept public financing, helping them keep pace with those who rely entirely on private largesse, The Times’s Adam Liptak wrote.

Looking at the voting record of the court’s newest member, The L.A. Times concludes that Justice Sonia Sotomayor has been a reliable liberal vote, so far.

Oil Spill: Mr. Obama is set to receive a briefing on the oil spill this afternoon, a day after researchers and federal officials confirmed that large plumes of highly diluted oil have spread far beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico.

The Washington Post chronicles Mr. Obama’s change of tone. It seems, Anne Kornblut writes, that the president’s “inner cowboy” is on full display.

Mideast Matters: Mr. Obama also has a meeting with the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas.

Economic Scene: David Leonhardt looks at where and why Democrats fell short on jobs, as they head into the midterms with unemployment still hovering around 10 percent.

The Times’s David E. Sanger and Sewell Chan tie Democrats’ lack of force on job creation to their reluctance to spend. An unfunded $200 billion jobs bill lingers in Congress, as both parties try to steer clear of adding unnecessarily to the $13 trillion national debt.

On bank pay, Eric Dash reports that federal regulators have found that banks have done little to change the compensation practices widely believed to have encouraged the excessive risk-taking that led to the recent financial crisis.

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal notes that banking institutions have unleashed efforts to dilute the financial regulatory overhaul that they failed to defeat.

Drugs: The Times’s Charlie Savage and Michael Gordon obtained a copy of an unreleased report detailing a “‘high and increasing″ availability of methamphetamine mainly because of large-scale drug production in Mexico.” The two report that the Obama administration repeatedly delayed the report in order to preserve fragile relations with the administration of President Felipe Calderon of Mexico.

The Blago Way: Instead of being on the ballot, former Gov. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois is on trial. Mr. Blagojevich faces 24 corruption charges, some related to an alleged attempt to sell the Senate seat vacated by President Obama. In opening statements Tuesday, his lawyers set out to portray him as a “C student” who was “fooled” by those around him, while prosecutors tried to mold him as a master of “illegal shakedowns.”